Page 14 of Defending Our Ever After

I hold my hand up when Julia starts to speak and quickly sign to Trisha that she’ll have to learn the basics. That we are all expected to have a working knowledge of all the key responsibilities on the property. I throw in an anecdote about Russ learning about animals to take the pressure off and am rewarded with another of her smiles.

Julia must have figured out that I was throwing Russ under the bus and glares at me as she’s opening the barn door. Considering that patrols and security is another key responsibility, it occurs to me that we don’t know if she’s trained with any weapons, but I decide to wait until tonight, so we don’t overwhelm her.

Fuck. Taking on another person is more complicated than I had anticipated and, suddenly, I have a new appreciation for how easily Mike agreed to take in Sara and me.

Chapter 6

Late November

“It looks like they take their security seriously at least,” Adams says what we’re all thinking, looking down at the small town from the vantage point he led us to.

“What the fuck kinda small ass town is this?” Javier asks, spitting over his shoulder. We thought we’d gotten a reprieve when he ran out of cigarettes, but he unfortunately came across several containers of chew along the way and now we’re more disgusted with the constant spitting than we were the smoke. “Fuck. I can see the whole thing from here.”

“You do realize that America is literally made up of towns this size?” Banks, our sniper, asks him.

“Hell with that, not Brooklyn. That is what ‘Merica is about!” he says, before he moves into the tree line to relieve himself.

“Was,” Banks calls after him, getting a finger in response.

Banks has been with us long enough now that none of us think twice about her being within six feet of us when nature calls. Years ago, our military training taught us that our unit must move as a team. While the four of us didn’t group together until our arrival on US soil, we still know that straying too far from each other could make us vulnerable.

“Well, it’s your town,” I say, looking at Adams. “Should we just walk up the road?”

“Yeah, doesn’t look like they’re in distress, so let’s play it straight.” He nods before turning and leading the way.

It’s been over a week since we’ve seen any further sign of whatever that group was that tore through the town in Minnesota, but I know in my gut, we haven’t seen the last of them. We spent a few days going out of our way, trying to find more intel on them, but there was nothing but razed towns before we lost them altogether.

Adams is from this little dot on the map just past the North Dakota border, so we swung north to get him home. He and Javier are tight, which in my mind, means that’ll it just be Banks and me continuing on in the coming days. Safety in numbers is more important than ever so it’s not ideal, but that’s our plan.

It was a fucking miracle that we even made it past the greater New York City area.

Once we all acknowledged that the ship we were on wouldn’t get any further, the crew used all the life rafts to go our own way. The fact that New York City was nothing more than embers, was painfully obvious; so, we headed north of there until we ran out of fuel we were allotted for the small engine on the raft, and paddled into land.

With all the local airports, planes had pretty much flattened the area; I was sick to my stomach when memories of what had happened twenty-plus years ago flooded me. Javier just shook his head at the thought of trying to find any of his people and followed us. For the first time since I met him, he wasn’t talking constantly.

Banks and Adams were quick to come up with the best route to get, first, to Adam’s hometown, then mine. After that is when it gets tricky, Banks is from southwestern Oregon.

We left it unspoken, but I was determined to help her get home—once I checked in with my family in Washington.

Based on what they mapped out, we eventually made our way overland to Lake Ontario, There was a lot of backtracking, even after we procured a boat. We cruised through all but one of the Great Lakes until we hit Duluth, Minnesota. Once we ran out of waterways, we were again faced with the unparalleled devastation our country was experiencing.

But nothing we’ve seen compares to the pile of bodies left behind in that random Minnesota town.

Since then, we’ve circumvented most of the towns we’ve encountered. Circling close enough to see if they were under duress, if they had been hit by the same group, or if they were still functioning. Three of the ones we had passed by even had buffet lines set up, showing how they were coming together to help each other in these fucked up times.

This small North Dakota town looks better secured than most, if the shotguns aimed at us from multiple angles behind their barricades, speak the truth.

“That’s far enough,” a deep voice rings out.

“I’m Blaine Adams,” my buddy calls back to the unseen man, pulling down his balaclava. “I’m Peaches and Artie’s son.”

Javier and Banks let out a chuckle while I try to conceal my own.

“Dude, your name’s Blaine?” I ask, turning to him.

“What the hell’s wrong with that?”

“I just don’t know if I’d have been okay with you watching my back all this time, if I had known your name wasBlaine.”

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